Online streaming has been the most popular industry today, and there has been a flood of online streaming platforms lately. From Netflix to Disney and from Apple TV+ to Amazon, there has been a tough rivalry between these big-name companies regarding ‘who bring better for the viewers?’ This time, leading to the going on streaming war, Amazon has stepped up its game a bit as it has announced to buy the James Bond franchise MGM for a sum of $8.45 billion.
A Brief Introduction of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MGM aka Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures is an American movie and TV studio based in Beverly Hills, California, and the one behind popular movies like the James Bond Franchise and Shark Tank. MGM is one of the oldest studios in Hollywood and was founded in 1924. The company is best known for its lion roaring logo along with the great movies it has offered in the past. The company works through its main three divisions, including MGM Home Entertainment, MGM Interactive, and MGM TV & Digital Group. Rocky, Legally Blonde, James Bond, The Pink Panther are some of the famous movie series released by MGM.
Amazon and MGM $8.45 Billion Deal
Amazon is a conglomerate and has its branches in almost every field. The company already owns a streaming platform with the name Amazon Prime and buying MGM would be its way to Hollywood, such that to bring even more exciting projects to its platform or maybe to try its hands in Hollywood movies production. Amazon has agreed to pay a sum of $8.45 billion so to acquire the movie studio, and the deal will be the second-largest acquisition by Amazon after the $14 billion worth deal of buying Whole Foods.
The deal will provide Amazon with the rights of 4000 movies, including the James Bond and over 17000 TV series produced by MGM, which will then be streaming on Amazon Prime for free for the people with Prime membership enhancing the Prime library. The deal will also get the company access to MGM’s cable channel named Epix.
“The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling,” said Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios.
There are already about 200 million subscribers to Amazon Prime who are freely accessing the content on Amazon’s streaming platform along with other perks like getting free shipping on their orders. However, the streaming platform could not offer very exciting content to its subscribers in recent days. The addition of more content to the platform from MGM will surely help the company raise its client base.
But still, some limitations will come along with the deal, as there are many incomplete contracts between MGM and other streaming companies that Amazon needs to wait to complete to stream the shows under the contract, for instance, shows like The Voice.
The pandemic has closed down all the theatres, and the online streaming platforms are the only way to entertainment for people, raising a tough competition between the big streaming platforms. Recently, AT&T and Discovery announced a similar deal worth $43-billion between them, merging their entertainment business that may also include HGTV, CNN, Food Network, and HBO as partners.
Though the company is trying its best to compete with its rivals, in recent times, these rivals have been criticizing the business practices of Amazon. Amazon started as a bookselling company, but today it has built a $1.6 trillion empire through its expansion strategies, spreading its wings into e-Commerce, cloud computing, online video streaming, etc.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.